Pandemic Diary 79
The Undocumented are Particularly Vulnerable to COVID's Attack on Health and the Economy
The latest installment:
A Facebook friend posts about her father: He’s in the ICU. He’s on a ventilator, “Fighting to fucking breathe.” // He’s a restaurant worker. Undocumented. In the U.S., in New Jersey, since the late ‘80s. Worked. Raised kids. His daughter’s a lawyer. Undocumented, too, but has DACA. Travelled here with her parents when she was 2. Busted ass to get through school. // She’s exhausted. Resigned. Hopeful. “Wear your fucking masks,” she says. “Quarantine if you need to, to protect others.” // CDC says, stay at home. Says wear a mask. He couldn’t. Immigrants can’t. They pay taxes, but get no help. No aid. No benefits. // According to the NIH, the undocumented “are at increased risk” of COVID because they have to work. Can’t stay at home. They are “essential.” // He “protected himself to the maximum,” she writes. But he had to work. Needed an income. “He insisted on working even though his employer wasn’t complying as needed” with COVID protocols. He caught the virus at work. // Now, he’s hospitalized. Now, he can’t work. Now, there is no income. And no help from the government. It has nothing to offer. Shouldn’t offer anything, That’s what they say. He doesn’t deserve it. He’s illegal. A crime’s a crime. // The argument is always the same. Built on narrow definitions. Crime. Punishment. Legal. Illegal. // The “Law is Law,” I’ve been told. Capitalized, as if “the Law” is infallible. As if we treat all laws as equal. As if all are always treated equally under the law. // The unauthorized immigrant has been placed beyond the law. He works. Pays taxes. Makes the economy go. Gets nothing in return. Gets sick. // His daughter waits and prays for him to recover. “My dad and I need to make many more memories together,” she says. “I’m confident he will.”